Hag's Hex

Overview

Hag’s Hex, it’s often said, is where the have-nots of Balsam go to become haves.

Desire hangs heavy over a guild filled with relentless climbers clawing for the thing they want most in the world... or, failing that, doing anything to numb a life with it forever slipped between their fingers.

An organization rooted in Balsam led by one Vera Escher, over the past 5 years Hag's Hex has been a persistent thorn in the side of the local authorities and Hob House. Though it hasn't done anything considered unforgivable enough to issue a bounty on its leader's head, Hag's Hex engages in a constant stream of crimes both petty and major while also enabling the criminal activities of others in Balsam. From auctioning stolen goods and racketeering to good ol' fashioned smash-and-grab and burglary, the guild acts as a central channel through which much of Balsam’s crime and wealth flows.

Multiple mages call Hag’s Hex their home with a total strength to call upon of about 25 members, the vast majority of which are weak to below average in strength. Rather than getting paid a regular wage, they largely act independently of the guild and each other, all pursuing their own individual cash grab schemes whilst passing back a share of their ill-gotten-gains to Vera. In return, she supports their dreams with Hag’s Hex’s vast resources, from jobs to connections to jewels, so long as members prove their profitability in the long term.

The guild has managed to integrate itself into all levels of society, and is well-connected with scholars, nouveau-riche and noble families alike, with its guildmaster often attending high-class galas despite her criminal activities. Pulling it out by the roots would quickly become an ugly task thanks to the amount of friends in high places it managed to gather, with some authorities dismissing the idea entirely. Whether or not it’s because said authorities are already ‘friends’ with Hag’s Hex or just fear the secrets it has accrued stays unclear.

Most meetings between guild members are conducted at the casino known as Hell’s Hand, the main operating base of Hag’s Hex and a front for their illegal activities as an ostensibly legal gambling den. It’s staffed by a couple dozen employees, most of which are vaguely aware of the Dark Guild’s presence if not members themselves but in enough debt or paid well enough to keep their mouths shut about it.

Founding

Nearly a decade ago, Vera Escher surfaced from nowhere in Balsam's darker streets as a back-alley doctor, agonizingly eating away at infected wounds and overclocking her patients' natural healing and immune systems with her finely-tuned Virus magic. She operated independently, never joining a dark guild despite scouting attempts from her stream of criminal patients who didn't trust normal healers, and focused solely on acquiring as many contacts and resources as she could.
Half a decade and a slew of patients later Vera bought a piece of real estate that would eventually become the Hell’s Hand Casino, marking the 'official' start to Hag's Hex as a guild. Over the course of five years, she turned an empty building and a couple flunkies to a loose confederation of thieves and cheats and then into a thriving criminal enterprise that has risen to prominence over the city’s many petty gangs and organizations. With the rise came change, though, and not just to Hag’s Hex.

Just as the guild went from a two-bit casino gang to a second society just beneath Balsam’s skin, organized crime as a whole in Balsam started to undergo a transformation.

For the longest time, crime in the city was just a casually brutal, everyday reality, but long-gone are the days of petty bandit gangs slitting each other’s throats in the muddy streets and lording over the weak of Balsam. Whether it’s because of Vera slowly choking the competition to death and drawing a hard line in the dirt, the former Chrysalis’ tortured penal guild members serving as living examples of those who go too far astray, or Hob House’s redemptive efforts and attempts to revitalize the city’s poorest neighborhoods, the results speak for themselves: the atrocities didn’t go away, they just got subtler. A small tourist town has ballooned out into a thriving city, and nothing seems capable or willing to stop that growth.

Organization

Pecking order within the guild is based on one thing and one thing alone: earnings.

Regardless of one's personal strength, those who bring in the most jewels are inevitably the highest-ranking members, leading to a guild culture that values guile and mercantile ruthlessness over pure power. However, those that possess the means to draw upon their own strength have their own means of profitability, and find that the contracts Vera sometimes doles out to her top guild members bring in enough money for themselves and for Vera's finder's fee. A happy win-win situation. These contracts vary from stealing particularly valuable magical items to leaning on certain authorities making business inconvenient to even jobs normally handled by Light Guilds, given out by clients who don’t mind a bit of moral ambiguity for the results they seek.

Generally, Vera prefers to keep a light touch. Hag’s Hex is a loose organization in general, held together by common profit and just enough discipline to keep its employees in line, with help from Vera’s overwhelming sense of charisma. What's abundantly clear is that it would quickly fall apart without her, but Vera has positioned herself in a way that any would-be usurpers would have to face high levels of risk for nearly no reward, given how generously she treats her guild members’ wallets. So long as the money keeps rolling in and no rules get broken, members are left to do their own thing with very little oversight.

Said rules are as simple as they are ironclad: avoid excess collateral damage. Your guildmates are as good as your own flesh and blood. If you take it, it’s yours. Betrayal means death.

Infighting between members is discouraged from breaking out into open violence, though if it does all Vera asks is that the brawls are done out of sight. Generally, it’s preferred for members to go up against each other in games of chance or wit that inevitably involve copious amounts of cheating, with the winner getting their way fully backed by Vera.

It goes without saying that anyone caught cheating loses the dispute.

Despite a certain familial vibe that Vera treats them with, however, Hag’s Hex isn’t a charity, and members that screw up tremendously (or worse, betray the guild) are marked for punishment or death. Fortunately, Vera hasn’t had to kill anyone personally since the early days of the organization when her grip on the underworld wasn’t so tight, but forays into the ‘fun room’ are still just barely common enough to distress guild members and associates of Vera’s.

Prominent Members

[VERA ESCHER]
Suspected Crimes: Murder, assault & battery, fraud, extortion, racketeering, arson, trafficking, embezzlement
Profile: A natural businesswoman possessed of an overwhelming charisma, suffocating beauty, and zero indicators as to her past. Vera is as tight-lipped as they come, not letting so much as a single detail slip, and has been something of a persistent mystery since she started making waves in Balsam a decade ago. Any allusions to further back are vague at best - she'd been born with nothing, as nothing, so it’s no surprise no one knew her, Vera claims. Unclear if Vera Escher is even her real name. Vera is drawn to those with unfulfilled ambitions, and many guild members (and those in debt to her) follow this trend.

[AXEL STARR]
Suspected Crimes: Murder, fraud, grand larceny, extortion, bribery
Profile: Vera’s right-hand man after a frankly meteoric rise through the ranks following his recent entry into the dark guild. Whenever Vera is away on business, Axel is almost always the one left in charge of the casino and has been given a vast amount of both responsibilities and privileges as a result. Regardless of his proclivities for staking it all on gambles, Axel has proven to be an incredibly profitable investment for the guild, though Vera has elected to not let him invest his magic in hers for her own reasons.

[LUCKUV THADRAW]
Suspected Crimes: Fraud, impersonation of government officials, burglary, bribery
Profile: In many respects Vera’s left-hand-woman, if only for how utterly omnicompetent she is. Luckuv wears many hats in Hag’s Hex and wears them all well, and so Vera trusts her to handle many of the everyday, common tasks that come with running a crime ring-slash-casino. A very popular performer and even more popular waitress, it’s a wonder she can go incognito to gather information for Vera at all.

[MARAK]
Suspected Crimes: Public intoxication, assault & battery, disturbing the peace, dining and dashing (paid for the meal but not the subsequent silverware consumed)
Profile: Dumb muscle #1. Marak only gets jobs from Vera for one reason and one reason alone: she needs something deleted off the map. Otherwise, the big guy is kept in reserve, sedated with a never ending stream of booze and idle distraction. Vera found him wanting for purpose in an alleyway, and never one to throw away a useful tool, elected to give him one: doing whatever Vera tells him. In return he never has to experience the pain of thinking for himself again.

[AMANE]
Suspected Crimes: Repeatedly threatening to kick a stray puppy whilst slowly moving his foot towards it unless the child in front of him found the courage to stop him, public indecency
Profile: The guild’s wild card, in more ways than one. Nobody actually seems certain what Amane actually does, how long he's been with Hag’s Hex, or even where he came from, but Vera has decided to keep him around anyways so he's everyone else's problem to deal with for now.
Allegedly the reason why Hell’s Hand installed a back door so he wouldn't distract or bother customers coming in or out. As far as anyone can tell, he has not used it even once.

[HILDA]
Suspected Crimes: Assault & battery, arson, disturbing the peace, destruction of public property
Profile: Dumb muscle #2. Hilda needs slightly more delicate aiming than Marak on the jobs Vera tends to give her, given her temper. If she is taken as security, it’s often as Vera’s personal bodyguard or with a similarly socially gifted handler, just to make sure she doesn't make a scene wrecking the place over a perceived slight. On the other hand, though, sometimes that's exactly what Vera needs, and she's more than happy to let Hilda experience the satisfaction of going all out.

Revenue Streams

[The Casino]
Known as Hell’s Hand, sometimes Hare's Hand by repeat customers who've seen the bunny-themed waitresses, Vera's casino finely walks the tightrope between scuzzy and classy. It's certainly cleaner than other casinos in Balsam, with strict rules and standards it holds both the guests and staff to: no soliciting, roughhousing, or magic allowed. At the same time though, its doors are open to anyone who can pass through them, not bothering with an exclusive clientele list or servicing a particular crowd.

That's what the second-floor VIP lounge is for, of course.

The girls are all beautiful, the atmosphere jovial, and the games rigged to hell and back. Each game on the smoky casino floor is subtly altered in a wide variety of ways rather than relying on a single gimmick. With just the roulette tables alone, cheating comes in the form of the tables themselves being mechanically altered, dealers trained in speed magic, and magnets within several balls.

Speaking of magic, the cufflinks that all croupiers and bunny girls wear are Lacrima, set to glow if any magic is used by their wearer. Guests are even encouraged to test out the lacrima themselves, provided they're able to use magic. Of course, the deception is simple: the lacrima only activates if magic passes through the arm it's worn upon, and one arm is always wearing a dud lacrima with the real copy kept in a pocket or just out of sight. Any employee who can't perform such a simple sleight of hand to swap the dud for the real version isn't worth hiring.

But not every game needs to be rigged, especially card games where the house has an overwhelming edge or faces no risk and merely takes a cut. The Hand is a stellar success with suckers across all class strata, and provides a constant stream of steady revenue to Vera.

However, the back rooms present a different story. There, the low smoke that hangs in the air feels considerably less friendly, the distant sounds of music and laughter almost mocking. Only the desperate, criminal, or truly stupid decide to gamble in the Hand’s back rooms, where the bets may be higher but so are the consequences for losing. This area is far more favored by Balsam’s many shadier wizards and criminals, and the plainly furnished rooms constantly need scrubbing down for blood whenever someone gets caught cheating. As part of separating the dark guild from the casino on the official record, Vera takes neither responsibility nor credit for anything that goes down in the Hand’s back rooms, which officially are only there for storage. Despite claiming ignorance, there is one request she makes - no killing on the premises.

The casino does not offer hotel services, but the second floor and many basements offer housing to guild members who lack homes of their own, a depressingly common truth shared by many of the guild's weaker members. Each room is equipped with running water and at least two beds, as well as a suite of minor amenities such as sound-dampening (but not removing) lacrima to make living beneath a busy casino more bearable. Second-floor rooms with views of the street are reserved for the guild's biggest earners, though they usually don't need the housing to begin with.

Waitresses are diamond and heart themed, while croupiers are club and spade themed:

Vera herself lives on the premises in a luxurious third-floor room, but usually winds up falling asleep in her office after one too many late nights working.

Floor Plan:

listen man I'll do the other floors later I know nothing about architecture and have made people wait too long already

The cleared walkways can extend suddenly up into interior walls in case of intruders. They're sturdy, but not capable of doing much other than confusing or slowing down S-rankers or below, depending on magic proficiency and their type of magic. Additionally, the stage itself can open up to drop anyone on it below into a wide, sealed-off room in the basement usually used in combat training. Of course, all areas are well-ventilated to ensure Vera’s virus magic still permeates throughout.

Rather than acting as serious impediments, these gimmicks instead exist to divide and confuse any potential raiders long enough for the guild’s heavy hitters to start taking them down one-by-one.

[Subsidiaries]
Across Balsam and in outlying towns, there lie more holes-in-the-wall than one could hope to count. Gambling dens, pachinko parlors, dog races, underground fight clubs - all preying on the gullibility and poor bets of others, and most passing money back to Hag’s Hex.

Several dozen of these shady ventures have decided that it’s safer to skim a little off the top to send to the winning game in town rather than try to compete directly, and so find themselves flourishing in their respective parts of town just far enough away from the Hand. It’s more than just an issue of fealty - an unaligned gambling den is an unspoken challenge to Vera’s presence and authority within Balsam, and more than a few have found themselves busted up or burnt down as a result.

“Protection fees” are hardly uncommon in Balsam, with even completely legal businesses often paying Hag’s Hex for the insurance of not having their place wrecked or knees imploded. However, those who are in debt, whether by indiscrete gambles or just taking shady loans from Vera directly, often wind up only digging themselves deeper into the interest hole alongside their protection payments until something goes horribly wrong or they skip town. Vera has little sympathy for anyone naive enough to get themselves in a position that bad, and finding one of the last few precious things such deadbeats hold only to take it away from them is a rare pleasure for her.

[Workshop]

Near the far back of Hell’s Hand lies a certain workshop, filled to the brim with top-of-the-line equipment and various magical and mundane items undergoing testing. Multiple projects are developed in tandem back here, from new ‘slot machines’ to unthought-of casino games to lacrima of all sorts. Though the workshop rarely produces any items of significant note, thanks to the lack of a consistently bright mind being in charge of them, a constant stream of sometimes-profitable idle curiosities leave it regardless.

Seeker is often found in here, despite not being a member of the guild proper, and is given loose enough supervision in the process of trying to work off her many debts. Yet so often, she's convinced that just one more resource is needed to make a breakthrough, and Vera is always there with a smile and an open hand...

Next to the workshop is a garage, holding multiple four wheeled magical vehicles inside. Considerably less useful than the workshop as anything other than a transport bay, it exists largely as one of Vera’s indulgences, and where she can often be found on one of her rare free days fiddling with her favorite car or just preparing to leave on a drive.

[Fencing & Otherwise]

The Hand's back rooms represent something of a neutral ground for Balsam's criminal element. It's not perfect, nor is it some constant black market, but it was never intended to be - the Hand is just a convenient spot guaranteed to be away from prying eyes, whether in its private rooms or the spacious area outside of its workshop. There’s no official requirement to kick back profit from any sales up to Vera, especially since Hag’s Hex and Hell’s Hand aren't meant to be one and the same entity, but occasionally gratitude for the space is transferred into a more monetary form by repeat sellers who use the area frequently.

Sometimes, however, the Hand will shut down early for an evening or two. Straggling and clueless gamblers are ushered out of the building, directed to a (subsidiary to Vera) separate business where they can burn their money with abandon. When all the chairs are pushed in and the front lights dimmed, the auction is ready to open.

These auctions take place at irregular intervals, only when Hag’s Hex has managed to scrape together enough items (or information) to be worth pitting criminal bidders against enough other. Juicy tidbits, estate blueprints, shipping manifests - if it can be used to get up to nothing good, it's probably been sold here. Not that information is the only prize.

Stolen art, exotic lacrima, and everything under the sun has been auctioned off in the Hand’s back room. Vera often keeps her favorite pieces to herself, but even the ‘scraps’ are often bought for ludicrous sums.

Current Status & Future Goals

Hag’s Hex continues to accrue a steady profit month after month. The casino itself has been hit by several unexpected expenses thanks to a certain woman without a name repeatedly wrecking the place, but Vera’s managed to pull through each crisis with about as much grace as possible.

Recently, the guild’s investigations into superweapons have deepened, though Vera hasn't informed any of her subordinates as to the reason why. Luckuv has been sent to pry into Moon’s Watch’s affairs and Hilda let off her leash to make trouble in Forest’s Embrace’s territory, while Vera herself has considered taking a trip to the far south to examine a vault-like superweapon recently uncovered by archeologists. Unfortunately, leaving the place in Axel’s (certainly capable) hands with nameless' constant assaults has stymied these plans.

Recently, rumors about a potential conflict between Moon's Watch and Hag's Hex have been swirling after members of the former engaged in a raid on a subsidiary casino beneath Hag's Hex. Whether anything will come of it is a mystery, but its set many on edge.